


Happily Ever After [Below the Waist]

by BewareTheIdes15



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Anal Play, Angst, Comeplay, First Time, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, Jealousy, M/M, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:15:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BewareTheIdes15/pseuds/BewareTheIdes15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with Zach saying, “I’ve decided I’m going to fuck you,” around a curl of smoke from a bummed cigarette and Chris aspirating enough Chimay to top off his lungs with a robust head of foam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place around the press tour for Star Trek 2009, mainly because I had originally planned for this to be spread out over a longer period of time and at some point that stopped making sense. 
> 
> Title from Fall Out Boy's "Beat the Doldrums", because the line 'better off as lovers, and not the other way around' always makes me think of Zach and Chris.

It starts with Zach saying, “I’ve decided I’m going to fuck you,” around a curl of smoke from a bummed cigarette and Chris aspirating enough Chimay to top off his lungs with a robust head of foam. The group huddled next to them turns around to stare as he hacks it back up over the railing of the deck, but they’re all here with Anton, so they’re, like, twelve and Chris doesn’t care if they think he’s cool or not.

In the privacy of his own head he’s absolutely allowed to pretend that’s true.

Zach pats Chris perfunctorily on the back, cherry tip of the cig kindling as he sucks in another slow drag.

Wheezing like a geriatric, Chris gets out, “I’m sorry, what?”

Behind the thick frames of his glasses, Zach’s face moves in something that probably would’ve been an arched eyebrow if it weren’t for the fact that the outside half of each one is just pin-prick stubble. Between that, the purple hoodie and the fucking stripey-ass hipster tank top he is, in all probability, the least sexy individual at this party.

Okay, no, probably not. Against all odds Zach manages to mesh his Brawny Man body-pelt with the style choices of a 19 year old liberal arts major to come up with something that’s oddly compelling. Chris has given up trying to understand it.

But still, half his eyebrows are missing. And he’s picking up facial tics from Spock. There is nothing in that mix that makes Chris think of naked fun times, even if he did generally swing that way - which is really the crux of this particular issue.

Zach stobs out the smoldering tip of his smoke on the inside of a planter and drops it into the empty champagne flute by his foot. Chris would have tripped over the damn thing and shattered glass all over the place ten minutes ago.

He’s still waiting for the punchline when Zach starts wandering off in the direction of the bar. Zach really struggles with the fact that you can’t just cut to black in real life.

“Do I get a say in this?” Chris laughs as he bumps along through the press of bodies, a couple of steps too far behind Zach to truly benefit from his magical powers of crowd navigation.

Shooting a glare over his shoulder and flipping his hair like a Valley girl – somewhere in the time-space continuum every girl Chris went to middle school with is shrieking in venomous envy over the pure hair flippitude that is Zachary Quinto – Zach sighs, “This isn’t prison, Christopher. I’m not going to anally penetrate you against your will. I plan to make you beg for the privilege first.”

There are times when it seems like the majority of Chris’ life is spent attending the parties of people he doesn’t really know for purposes he doesn’t really understand. One of the numerous unforeseen consequences of this fact is that a not-insignificant portion of his personal life happens while surrounded by people he’s never met before. A lot of the time that’s fine, because pretty much everyone he hangs around with nowadays is in the same boat, so their conversations tend to go like mafiosos on a tapped phone; all euphemisms and couched references and conveniently discarded last names. 

 _Anally penetrate_  doesn’t really sound like a euphemism.

“I just thought I should give you advance notice. If you feel the need to have an irritating sexuality crisis, go ahead and get it out of the way before the press tour, alright?”

And yep, Chris just kicked over a glass. Wine glass, not champagne, but the point stands. Why is everybody setting these damn things on the ground?

By the time he finishes apologizing to a guy who he’s pretty sure neither has to pay for nor clean up the mess, Zach’s already sidled up to the bar. Eyes on the bartender like a starving hyena, he’s blithely ignoring the woman next to him as she fires off speculative glances between him and Chris, like it means something to her whether that was inside joke or not.

It certainly means something to Chris and he’s got about as much idea about the answer as she does.

If there’s a label out there for whatever the hell his relationship with Zach is, Chris has never stumbled across it. Bromance seems to be the popular option, but Chris has yet to figure out what the fuck that actually means.

Sure, they hang out, but so does almost everybody in the cast; making a movie is a lot like living on another planet, and nobody can relate to that quite as well as the people in orbit with you. He and Zach just end up together more than the others because of how their scene schedules match up, and how important it has been to nail the chemistry between Kirk and Spock, and the fact that they have a lot of things in common.

Having sex with guys is not one of those things.

It’s never really been a big deal before. Chris has gay friends, and Zach has always been intimidatingly, refreshingly honest - not the least about the fact that he’s got dibs should Chris ever feel inspired to revisit that one awkward almost-BJ he nearly gave his Russian Lit TA. They flirt and they touch and they joke a hell of a lot and they both know exactly where the lines are. Or at least Chris thought they did.

“Are you-“ He shuts up when the bartender gets close enough to hand Zach a gin and tonic, promptly disappearing again before Chris can snag another beer. “I can’t tell if you’re fucking around right now or not.”

Zach sighs into his drink like the saddest little movie star that ever was. Unflinchingly levels his gaze at Chris and takes the fraction of a step needed to get in close. Too close for propriety, if they weren’t being crammed up against the cash bar at Someone’s celebration of Something by a bunch of Somebodies. Close enough that Chris can taste the juniper and tobacco on Zach’s breath when he accidentally inhales as Zach’s exhaling.

Close enough that it would almost be the discretion that was totally missing two minutes ago, except for how Zach’s lips dusting the angle of Chris' cheekbone until they’re nestled against his sideburn must look like something that would jump discreet in a dark alley and rifle through its wallet.

A weird, sticky-thick moment crawls by where he’s just standing there, staring at the fuzzy shape of Zach’s head and trying to remember if his arms always hang at his sides all gawky like this. Zach’s hand is on his hip and Chris isn’t exactly sure when it got there, but it’s warm and damp from the humidity and gentle enough that Chris would barely have to move at all to pull away from it.

He doesn’t pull away. Shivers a tiny bit when all Zach does is breathe – he’s got sensitive ears; a fact that he knows Zach knows because whiskey makes Chris want to share with the class and Zach has a well-stocked home bar – but doesn’t pull away. If they’re playing chicken, Chris sure as hell isn’t going to be the first on to back down. He thinks maybe they’re playing chicken. He really hopes they’re playing chicken.

How the hell do you win gay chicken against a gay guy?

Then Zach says, bottom of the barrel low and just as dark, "I’m not fucking around,” and gravity flings itself over the deck railing and drags Chris’ stomach along for the ride.

They've been casual acquaintances for a long time and real friends for months. Long enough to have learned how Zach takes his coffee, and the difference between that and how he actually _likes_ his coffee; that he has to shave twice a day to keep his face Vulcan-smooth and that his taste in books is exactly as pretentious as he pretends it is, but he can also name every one of the Real Housewives of New York. That he sleeps with an arm flung over his face, unless he’s really tired, in which case he sleeps like an octopus, ready to cling to anything that wanders close enough. That he has a very selective understanding of the term ‘personal space’.

In all that time, the space between them has never felt like heat lightning was about to strike, snap-crackle-pop in the wishful-thinking centimeter between their chests. The hairs on the back of Chris' neck are standing on end.

It's… It's weird. It's really weird. It's weird that Zach is saying these things and it's weird that they make Chris feel weird and it's weird that his command of the English language has been reduced to the word weird by the level of weirdness going on.

Like somebody called cut, the tension dissolves into nothing as Zach steps back enough to let Chris remember what breathing room feels like and gives up a smile that’s all sugar-dipped innocence.

“By the way, you have marinara on your shirt,” he says, poking harder than strictly necessary at a red blotch on Chris’ – brand new, fucking fuck – oxford. Son of a bitch.

***

Zach was obviously joking. It was intense at the time, but hey, Zach gets like that; moods where the boundaries in his personality shift and he veers across the median into Spock or Sylar territory. Chris can relate. It's tough to live with a personality in your head for very long without ending up with odd pieces of it stuffed into boxes in the back of your mind. Hell, he's been relying on Kirk a lot lately to get through all of the pre-buzz for the press tour.

So, yeah, a joke. Not even that different from a lot of jokes they've made, just a touch more explicit. Actually, not even that explicit compared to the night that Zach expounded on Chris' 'dick-sucking lips' to the entire cast. And crew. Admittedly, he's not sure Zach remembers that night, what with the tequila and all.

Anyway, the point is, Zach was definitely, absolutely, totally joking, so there's no reason to be freaked out about it.

Not that he's freaked out, exactly, so much as just, you know, concerned. He considers Zach a friend, and the last thing he'd want to do is unintentionally lead the guy on or anything.

Which he's not, because Zach knows Chris is straight.

Okay, not, like, zero on the Kinsey scale straight, but, like, a one. Maybe a two. Not whatever number covers getting down and dirty with male costars-slash-friends he's contractually obligated to work with for the next half decade or so. Way straighter than that.

Twelve days is too long to have been thinking about this.

And that's why Chris calls Zach. Because it's a joke, and therefor only weird if Chris refuses to let it go. Playing along is the only logical way to diffuse the issue.

Logical. Jesus, this fucking movie is taking over his life.

Zach picks up on the third ring with his usual question-marked, "Hello?" like everybody in America hasn't had caller ID for a zillion years.

Since greetings are really overrated anyway, Chris jumps straight in with, “Dare I ask why you’ve suddenly decided to fuck me?”

On the other end of the line there’s silence for a beat – Chris even counts out the H-O-L-D in his head like he’s still in high school theater – and then Zach is clearing his throat, "Oh, hello, Chris. Yes, my day's been fine, how's yours? You've spent it thinking about my dick in your ass? Well that's certainly innocuous and not telling in the least."

There's a rustling noise in the background that Chris can't quite make out.

"Are you talking about your dick in public?"

"I was talking about my dick  _in your ass_ , and I just got back from the grocery store." Quieter, but more firmly, he adds, "Noah, down."

"Headband or hat?" Chris asks, already booting up his laptop to check out TMZ. As a general rule, paps can die in fire for all Chris cares, but he's willing to make an exception in the name of embarrassing pictures of Zach.

"You're entirely too invested in my sartorial choices, Pine."

This isn't an unfair point; Chris does delight in Zach's wardrobe - making fun of it - more than his therapist would probably approve of. In his defense, though, Zach gives him a lot to work with. Case in point, the headgear. Zach is in possession of a truly stunning array of bespoke douchebag hats and stretchy little headbands that cost more than Chris' shoes, which he wears to the gym and on errands; any time he deems the effort of primping his hair just exactly so to be too much.

Chris owns two ball caps, a newsboy, and a beanie he got at Sundance, like a fucking normal person.

"And don't think I didn't notice that you opened with ass fucking and then asked what I'm wearing. Your phonesex technique needs an overhaul."

"Well, you didn't answer the first question, so I had to come at it from a different angle."

"That's what she said."

Zach’s side of the conversation goes dead for long enough that Chris pulls the phone away from his ear to check the connection. "I hate you, and John, and am ashamed of my life that those words just came out of my mouth."

With the off-kilter twinge that’s been cozied up to his stomach for the past two weeks instantly soothed by the easy slide into their usual banter, Chris is on the verge of changing the subject. If anybody got pics of Zach shopping, the internet has not discovered them yet and Chris would really like to ask how the eyebrow situation is coming along, but then Zach makes a considering noise that peaks Chris' curiosity more than the eyebrow thing.

“Why have I decided to fuck you?” he muses.

There’s a flurry of clinking on Zach’s end that Chris now recognizes as the sounds of things shifting around in the fridge, because Zach is a freak of nature and can’t just put shit in there however it fits – there are levels of organized that should qualify as superhuman, up to and including anything involving a label-maker. Of which Zach owns two.

“I assume you’ve been present for the entirety our relationship?” Zach’s tone makes it sound like a rhetorical question, but rhetoric would suggest that Chris has some clue what the hell that’s supposed to mean. “It’s practically inevitable at this point, everyone knows it. And I’ve fucked guys for far less than the ability to discern a metaphor from an allegory.”

"My literary devices get you hot, baby?" Chris purrs, ragged around the edges where he can’t stop himself from laughing at the mental image of Zach handing out pop quizzes to random club twinks.

Stuck somewhere between psycho-killer and bedroomy, Zach retorts, "You already know the answer to that."

It’s definitely a joke.

***

Despite the miserably long flight, the jet lag in Sydney isn't bad; far enough from home that Chris has almost caught up with his own day-night schedule again. Being on the front end of the tour probably helps. He's got a feeling he'll be dragging way before they make it back to L.A., let alone Tokyo, but for now the nervy excitement is enough to keep him daisy-fresh all the way through the first red carpet.

After, he’s wired, in that exhausted way that means he’s going to be staring at the ceiling for the next five hours, too fuzzy to focus on anything worthwhile. Fortunately, there’s Zach with his preternatural sense of Chris’ moods – swear to god, sometimes it seems like he really is a touch-telepath – who shows up at Chris’ door all of ten minutes after they make it back to the hotel wearing a pair of silky pajama pants that Chris is never ever going to stop giving him shit for, even if they do feel really nice against his bare calves when they settle down on the bed.

Chris' head is pillowed against Zach's shoulder so Zach can do that scalp massage thing he's unfairly good at. With a belly full of glorified shrimp puffs and some surprisingly good wine, everything is warm and comfy and there's a very real possibility that he's melting into some form of goo-puddle that the Trek canon probably already has a name for. Totally worth the hassle of becoming a movie star.

He's got no clue what's going on in the movie they're playing at watching, but the presence of Toni Collette suggests he might actually enjoy it if he bothered to keep up. That's a lot of effort, though, when he could just lay here like a boneless blob of muscle and pretend this doesn't count as cuddling.

Chris is just a tactile person, alright? Besides, everybody deserves a good cuddle after their first major international premiere.

Feather-light, Zach's fingertip traces the shape of Chris' ear, rucking up the peach-fuzz hairs on his skin until Chris' spine rocks with a shudder. It makes Zach laugh, a thunder rumble through the ear Chris has pressed against his chest. Gets him reaching across with his other hand to flick at the hard point of Chris’ nipple where it shows through his worn out sleep shirt. “You’re so easy.”

“Hey,” Chris complains, batting lazily at Zach’s hand, “no second base on the first date. First base? The base system always confused me.”

This time Zach’s laugh is louder, more in his face as the asshole dislodges Chris from his comfy shoulder-pillow. “It’s a miracle you’ve ever been laid.”

Chris opens his mouth to reply with something witty or scathing or, like, impressive maybe? He doesn’t even know, all traces of it scoured from his brain by the sensation of Zach’s lips pressed against his own.

Okay, not entirely unprecedented – he’s hung out with enough of Zach’s friends to know that some of them are friendlier than others, and that Zach is prone to picking up habits, particularly after a couple of drinks. Usually it’s just quick pecks, though, or sloppy attempts that are more licks than lips before dissolving entirely into giggles. Not slow and warm, coaxing, slightly wet when Zach opens his mouth enough to breathe humid against Chris’, which, strangely enough, makes Chris part his lips too.

The wheel of time spins out on the blacktop as Chris waits for reality to start functioning again. In the meantime, Zach’s tongue is in his mouth, flicking at him like a slick little flame. His hand is on the back of Chris’ head, probably because that’s where it started off anyway, with the scalp massage and everything, only now the faint pressure of his fingertips is a suggestion, scratching a reward with his nails when Chris follows the tacit instruction to tip his head further to the right.

Chris’ heart is thudding in his ribcage, flooding his veins with heat until he feels like he’s blushing all over, like he’s suddenly got twice as many touch receptors for Zach to play with as he started out with. And Zach is playing, like a kid with a brand new toy. He trails the flat of a palm down Chris’ side, pressing at his ribs, then down to his hip, back again, up the center of his torso. His fingers drag Chris’ shirt up, just enough that one fingertip snags at the dip Chris’ belly button, ticklish but not.

For whatever reason, that’s the flashpoint of intimacy that catapults Chris back into present tense.

"Zach," he manages to get out as Zach readjusts the angle of his head. Gasps, really, but who's counting.

Zach mumbles, "What?" and doesn't give Chris a chance to answer before he's licking his way around the inside of Chris' teeth.

"Zach!" Chris tries again, shoving at Zach's shoulders until he backs off enough to stop trying to suck the tastebuds off of Chris' tongue.

Once he’s there, though, Chris can’t seem to remember the words he needed all that space for. Mainly because Zach’s staring at him across the distance of six sweltering inches with these eyes that belong in a jungle somewhere tracking something fluffy and defenseless.

"Do you honestly feel up to having sex right now?" is not at all what Chris is expecting him to say.

"No! I-"

"Good, me either,” Zach cuts him off, as if that makes any sense at all with the- Oh god, is that? That’s- “But this is nice, isn't it?"

Nice isn't exactly the word Chris would use for the smooth little shimmy that gets Zach settled firmly between legs Chris doesn't remember spreading.

Oh yeah, that’s definitely a boner. Possibly just a semi, but still. He’s touching Zach’s semi-boner. Being touched by. Adjoined, impinged upon, abutted by.

Maybe don’t think about ‘butt’ at this particular juncture.

"It doesn't have to be a big deal." The calm, reasonable - vaguely condescending - tone of Zach's voice clashes with the coal-black promise pulling at the edge of his mouth.

"Or we can finish the movie." Zach shrugs, like it honestly makes no difference to him. Chris doesn't buy that shit for a minute – could measure how much difference it makes to Zach by the hot indent that’s being dug into his hip - but then he's also not sure it's a total lie.

One of the things Chris has always envied about gay guys is how dissimilar the expectations are. Zach fucks around exactly the way Chris fucks around, except no one gets huffy or awkward when Zach runs into a one-and-done at a party. And objectively, there’s no reason two people making out has to mean anything, it just historically has for Chris. That he almost always hooks up with the people he makes out with might be skewing that data somewhat, but-

Chris’ logic jars on a track-switch in that train of thought, and then he’s staring up at Zach with a 50/50 cocktail of impressed and outraged.

“You smooth motherfucker. Is that how you talk all the straight boys into bed?”

Zach grins, alley-cat sly, and the comment Chris was betting on about how they’re already in a bed turns out, instead, to be, “Pft,  _straight_.”

The fog of unsteady tension burns away under the warm glow of Zach's particular brand of humor. If Zach's picking on him, things can't be too out of whack.

Something about that, the shift, pings familiar at the back of Chris' head, but he's too busy reaching back to snag one of the lumpy pillows piled at the head of the bed to ponder it just now.

Zach's already dodging by the time Chris flings it at his head, but it's not for nothing that Chris spent every vacation of his childhood sharing a room with his big sister. Advanced Pillow Judo may not be resume material - that doesn't mean it's not a useful life skill.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention before that this fic is basically going to be a ridiculously long PWP? Because yeah...
> 
> (Trigger warning for the use of the word slut in a joking way - just in case!)

They do, in fact, end up making out in Sydney - after the complete annihilation of one pillow that Chris felt so bad about he'd made Zach chip in on the exorbitant tip he left for housekeeping. Auckland’s the same song on repeat, minus the arguing and plus a tiny, faint bruise which Chris adamantly refuses to consider a hickey. Kuwait is way too hot to entertain getting within five feet of another human being, but they fall back into it in London.

Chris keeps expecting to freak out about it more than he is, but the homoerotic panic never sets in.

Maybe it’s because it doesn’t really feel like making out, not the way Chris is used to it at least. Usually, if he goes to the trouble of getting his tongue in someone’s mouth it’s a prelude to getting his something else in another part of them; a negotiation and a declaration of invasion all in one.

With Zach, it’s more like a really good conversation. Sometimes it  _is_  a conversation, kisses that ebb out into the same bullshit they’re always throwing at each other and then melting back into slick lips and tongues again. Rolling around in hotel beds that aren't quite big enough for the both of them, lazy and relaxed; playful in a way that Chris hasn’t experienced since before he could buy beer. It’s sort of a fascinating to just kiss somebody, knowing it’s not headed anywhere.

Zach touches him as easily as he has from day one, pulling back the couple of times Chris shies. He never strays far from the safe zones, concentrating on Chris’ back and his chest, kneading a bit at his hips or the outside of his thighs with hands that feel intimidatingly big. Chris has never been the smaller body in the equation before.

Zach’s broad across the shoulders and there’s lean, flexible muscle lashed to every inch of him. Nothing Chris didn’t already know from working with and working  _out_  with and dicking around with Zach, but viscerally different when Zach’s using it to pin his wrists to the bed and nibble down the curve of his neck. That's the first time it really nails Chris that he can’t just grab Zach and shift him wherever he wants, the way he tends to with girls. If Zach really committed to holding him down, Chris would have to work to get away.

Not that that’s a real issue. Chris can say, “Hey,” and nudge a little and Zach will rein it in like it’s nothing. Will go back to skating his hands up Chris’ ribs and palming at his chest and sucking on his earlobe until Chris’ eyes cross. Telling Zach about the ear thing is the best worst decision Chris has ever made.

During the day they’re still Zach-n-Chris; too close for comfort, but no more so than ever. Zach doesn’t try to kiss him or touch any more than usual, even though Chris spends a couple of days in low-level paranoia about it before he realizes that he’s just gotten more aware of how much they’ve always waged war on one another’s personal space.

No one else seems to have noticed anything’s changed, which is great, and better than Chris could have hoped for if he’d ever given any consideration to no-strings-attached kissing with someone who’s rapidly become his best friend. It also means Chris has no one to talk to about it, even though he’s not sure what he’d want to say in the first place.

Not that he's ever let that stop him.

"Have you ever done the friends with benefits deal," he blurts at John four minutes into the Berlin flight, all James Bond subtle.

He's grateful to have gotten seated next to John this time around, even if he does regret not snagging the booklet of crosswords he and Zach have been working on out of Zach's bag. Still, he appreciates the companionship shake-up. His social calendar could do with a little variety.

With the way PR always splits them all up for interviews, he feels like he’s barely seen the rest of the cast outside of airports and red carpets these last couple of weeks. It’s strange knowing how many of them are in the eye of the media storm together when the only one he sees for any meaningful length of time is Zach.

John jerks back from a near-doze against Chris' shoulder – Chris is never going to stop envying how easily some people can sleep in-transit - blinks hard a couple of times until his eyes seem to focus.

"Well," John yawns, fiddling with the seat back until it reclines another measly quarter inch, "I'm married. Basically the same thing."

The four hundred and fifty-seven thousand pictures  Chris has been bombarded with since the start of the tour skitter around the back of his head like autumn leaves in the wind; him and Zach in their 'make nice with the press' suits, side by side, hands at the small of each other’s back, or around shoulders. Take out the step-and-repeat, sub in a garden or a church - lapsed or not, Zach would probably insist on a church for the vows - and wow, okay, what the fuck. Chris is shutting down that line of thinking right the fuck there. Nobody deserves to get stuck with Zach for the rest of their lives. Or Chris, in point of fact.

"Why, you got something going on?" Guaranteed trouble glints like a switchblade in John's eyes when Chris looks back at him, curiosity crawling, shadowy, around the edges of his smile. Chris takes back everything he thought about being glad to sit next to John. "With who? Zoe?"

This is when Chris should laugh it off as a joke, a curiosity, and change the subject, but, "What's with the skeptical face? Why is that so implausible?"

To the best of Chris' knowledge John can't do that Vulcan eyebrow-raise thing any better than he can, but his 'bitch, please' stare still manages to look decidedly Spockish without it.

Alright, fine, Zoe would eat Chris for breakfast with a side of bacon. Whatever.

"No. I just- It was just a question. Forget I said anything. Go back to sleep."

A good ten seconds after Chris turns to stare out the window, he remembers he pulled down the shade at the start of the flight.

John, the bastard, carries on undeterred. "Is it somebody on the tour? It's got to be. Why would you have brought it up if it wasn't? Oh, man, you know you can't fuck press girls, right? There's a code about these things. No sleeping with the enemy."

"I'm not fucking the press!" Chris snaps, trying, simultaneously, to shrink several feet in his chair. Nobody's looking, and it's probably too loud over the whine of the engines for any decent eavesdropping anyway, but come on. A little fucking decorum! "Look, I told you, it was just a question, I wasn't talking about anybody in particular. It was just, just theoretical!"

"Uh-huh, sure, I flip out about people overhearing me talk hypotheticals all the time.” Man, that is a good ‘bitch, please’ face.

“So it's somebody you want to keep a secret, and if it's not because she's press then it must be somebody the rest of us would kno-" John stares at the back of the seat in front of him, jaw slackening slightly on its hinge. "Oh. Dude. Really?"

"What?" Chris says, in a totally unshifty way. The opposite of shifty. Anti-shifty Pine, that's what they'll call him.

"Finally!" There are a couple of extra syllables in John’s groan that really don’t seem justified considering he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. He doesn’t. "Damn it, I told Simon we should have had a pool going."

"Pardon?" Chris' voice absolutely does not squeak. Note to self, do not take up international espionage. "You're not even mak-"

Evidently satisfied, even though _he doesn't know anything_ , John relaxes back into the minimal recline of his seat. "Hey, man, it's cool. As long as you're both happy, you know none of us cares."

He gives Chris an amiable slap on the arm and completely ignores the, "I don't even know what you're talking about," that Chris splutters back. Either that, or he's already asleep.

Fucker.

****

If Chris was paranoid about people picking up on something going on between him and Zach before he talked to John, now he might as well be walking around with a tin-foil hat on. Naturally, that means everybody has noticed, just not in the way Chris had been watching out for. He's been pulled aside by J.J., gotten three calls from his agent, and one from his sister, all wondering why he spontaneously turned into the little engine that couldn't.

Zach just keeps staring at him.

The whole thing has Chris twisted up in knots. Eating and sleeping have become major life challenges, courtesy of John's, " _Really?"_  replaying over and over in his head; concentrating on interviews is practically impossible. He hasn't gone within two feet of Zach off-camera in days and it's just the shittiest thing. He knows it every time he flinches away from the offended looks Zach keep sending him, and he still can't stop.

Zach's never explicitly come out, not to Chris, anyway. It was always just obvious, just known, just  _Zach_. But there's a difference between the real world and the world of perception, and he didn’t have to spend much time at all with Zach to realize how much of a struggle it is to find the balance; how obvious to be while still maintaining a budding Hollywood career. He knows he's not the only "straight" boy - and when the hell had he started putting his own sexuality in mental quotation marks? - to ever leave Zach high and dry. Hell, he's said as much between the lines more times than Chris can count; all but said it the night he announced he was going to fuck Chris. And now Chris is one of those assholes.

Except he's not, because those guys were all gay, or bi, and just didn't want to own up to being with Zach - as if being deemed worthy of attention by Zachary Quinto isn't one of the highest compliments known to man. And Chris is, well, apparently he's quote-unquote straight in his own mind, so it's tough to get too holier than thou, but he's not ashamed of Zach by any means. If there's one guy on the planet Chris would be proud to be known as the boyfriend of, it'd be Zach.

And George Clooney.

And Karl. Possibly Eric.

Quote-unquote straight may be a stretch.

"Quote-unquote straight may be a stretch," Chris calls out - too loud, because he's nervous, okay? - throwing the bolt on the suite door as it shuts behind him. It locks automatically, but these old European doors are never as heavy as their American counterparts and Chris always gets anxious that it didn't really really really latch every time he closes one.

Zach's lounging on the sofa in the small sitting area that connects their bedrooms. He's spent a lot of time there since they checked-in, French doors flung open to the one-foot-deep balcony overlooking the Tuileries Garden. He'd scoff if Chris pointed out that he always seems to be looking out of them just when the Eiffel Tower is doing its sparkly-spangle extravaganza at night, but they haven't really been in a 'picking on each other' place recently.

He doesn't look up from his book as Chris comes in, just says blandly, "I asked you to get this out of the way before the tour."

"Well you didn't try to-" This is where it would be really handy to have Zach jump in and rescue him, but they're not really in a 'finishing each other's sentences' place either. "To mack on me before the tour!"

" _Mack on you_?"

"I blanked. And anyway, it's not even the gay thing. You think it's the gay thing, but it's not."

Deep pink, Zach tongue peeks out from between his lips for his pointer finger to tap daintily against; a shine traveling along with it as he reaches back down and turns the page with more tenacity than it deserves. "Yes it is."

"Okay, it is a little bit," Chris admits, grudgingly, "But everybody already thinks I'm a slut anyways, so them thinking I’m a slut for guys too is… whatever."

With a beleaguered sigh, Zach tucks his bookmark into place, shifting it up and then back down by fractions of a centimeter before finally shutting the book with a thick whump of paper. "Some days I am absolutely mystified by your grasp of the language. Or lack thereof."

He stands up, sweeping across the room with that same casual purpose of movement  he naturally injects into everything. All he ends up doing is planting himself next to the entry to the balcony.

Somewhere in the world, a laundry detergent commercial is missing its sunlight because all of it is streaming in across Zach’s face, crisp and idyllic as it throws his contours into slices of black and white, diamond-glittering along the tips of his hair and pointillism stubble .

Chris would not put it past Zach at all to sit around planning out these tableaus.

"So if it's not  _the gay thing_  what's got you bent out of shape?" Zach murmurs scathingly to the Parisian skyline.

Zach tends to wield his opinions like a brick wrapped in satin, a thin veneer of elegance layered over the sharp edges that will scrape you raw and leave you reeling. Spending time with him means being on the receiving end of that a lot more often than the people who are smart enough to keep a safe distance, but it also means being snugged in close enough not to take the full brunt of the hit. Obviously Chris has gotten too used to that, because having the accusation - the, the _disappointment –_  that’s lingering in every scrap of Zach’s purposeful inattention aimed his way knocks all of the filters right out of Chris’ head.

"People could know!” he snaps, cringing immediately at how it bounces off the thin walls. “It's a big fucking joke to the cast already and none of them even seriously think we're, you know…”

At least Zach’s looking at him now, even if it is with the same expression casting directors use right before they say, “We’ll call you.”

The acne-pocked fifteen year old who lives permanently in the back of Chris’ psyche insists that babbling is the only solution.

“I mean, unless Trek just completely bombs, we’re going to be working together on and off for the next ten years, man. And it would be really fantastic if I didn't have to spend a decade of my career with everyone quietly panicking over whether we can still work together because we fucked around that one time. Not to mention that I'd really like it if one of the best friendsh- no, you know what? One of the best  _relationships_ , period, of my adult life didn't get fucked up because of my cock."

Chris is panting slightly by the time he’s done. He’s honestly not sure if it’s because he was whisper-shouting, or because he said all of that so fast he didn’t have the chance to stop for a breath.

By now he’s found his way over to the opposite side of the balcony door from Zach, bathed cool in shadow while the sunlight turns Zach’s eyes maple syrup-gold.

"Things aren't going to get fucked up between us." Zach’s lips are pulled up at the corners, soft all the way ‘round in a way that makes Chris impulsively want to hide Zach’s face against his neck.

If the day ever comes when Zach sounds unsure about anything, Chris is going to take it as a sign of the apocalypse. Which just makes Chris feel even dumber for how easily that certainty unknots his bunched shoulders.

Knee-jerk stubborn, he argues, "Yeah, because you still hang out with so many of the guys you've hooked up with." It’s a fair point, even as lukewarm as it comes out sounding.

"That's because I don't usually hook up with guys I actively like.”

And see that? Satin-covered brick, right to the gut. Not only because Zach means it, but because he says it like an indelible truth, a reality so basic as to be taken for granted – fire burns, water is wet, Zach likes Chris.

“Or know, for that matter,” Zach adds after a second. He steps across the invisible boundary between them to lean his shoulder against the doorjamb on Chris’ side.

His arms are crossed over his chest, not nearly as closed off as the sealed vault doors behind his eyes. The warm-woodsy-bright scent that clings to everything  Zach owns is amplified in the heat from the sun, insinuating itself into the vague suggestion of empty space between their bodies. “But it's okay if you want to stop, there’s no need for a dramatic break-up scene. It may have been a bad idea to start with."

Chris’ eyes trace over Zach’s face, picking out all of the little nothings in his expression as they tap out their coded messages.

"You don't really think that."

Zach’s eyebrow hitches, only just, like a shrug would have been too much effort. "No I don't, but I pretend professionally."

And then Chris, somehow, is kissing him. It's more like a lunge that he just happened to lead with his mouth, really, and there's a very real chance that he just busted his own lip, but it's better. Much better than these endless days of not-this. Hot and desperate, wet when Zach opens his mouth and licks at him. The kind of thing that’d probably look like absolute shit on camera but it's making Chris' nerves sizzle.

When Chris peels his eyes open again, Zach’s looking at him. Studying, even, like Chris' skin turned to cellophane while he wasn't paying attention and all of his secrets are smudging their noses against it in their eagerness to get out and prostrate themselves.

It's not good, not when Zach’s already naturally gifted at seeing through Chris. Not good. And fucking fantastic. It makes Chris' stomach wriggle like an excited puppy and his temperature spontaneously rise ten degrees. Makes him itch and fidget and nearly trip over his own damn feet when Zach grabs him by the arms and shoves him back against the wall.

"That wasn't a goodbye kiss." There’s not a question in there, but Zach hangs back, an inch shy of putting his mouth on Chris', like he actually expects Chris to have coherent thoughts right now.

A head shake is the best he’s got. Zach's teeth are on his neck in a hot second.

"Ah! Jesus!" Chris yelps, valiantly ignoring the bolt of heat that just streaked through his belly on its way to score a direct hit to his balls, "Cameras, dude!"

"Everybody thinks you're a slut anyway," Zach grins against Chris' faintly throbbing skin. Laughs at the sharp tug Chris gives his hair before he bites down harder into Chris' shoulder through his shirt. “ _Dude._ ”

Any second now Chris is going to haul out his usual routine to slow things down, but for the moment, Zach nosing aside the collar of Chris's shirt to nip along his clavicle doesn't feel like a step too far. Just far enough, in fact. Same goes for the hands pushing under the hem of his shirt, smoothing over bare skin lightly enough to make his abs jump and shudder.

The shorter hair along the side of Zach's head brushes ticklishly at Chris lips as Zach moves to lick at the dip between his collarbones. Up close, he smells like pomade and spicy aftershave and the Citrus & Neroli conditioner he's lugged across four continents. The light bloom of stubble on his jaw leaves a contrail of firing nerves behind as his mouth flits around Chris' neck like a manic hummingbird. There's really no getting around the fact that he's a guy. Chris' brain obstinately refuses to be bothered with that right now.

He can't, in all honesty, say he's never thought about this, but a few furtive shower-time fantasies still leave him nothing like prepared for the groin-punch of want when Zach's knees hit the carpet between his spread feet.

Zach doesn't tease like Chris would have expected, just reaches up and pops the button on Chris' jeans to yank his fly open. Doesn't pause for a second until he's got Chris' pants and boxers both shucked to mid thigh. Just as well, too, because Chris isn't at all sure that he wouldn't pussy out given the chance to do some critical thinking here.

And really, fuck thinking. Who needs thinking when they could have Zach's mouth on their dick?

He's still a little soft for the first couple of sucks, but all that means is that Zach can cram the whole damn thing into his mouth, slippery warmth all the way to the base of Chris' cock, muggy huffs where Zach's nose is pressed into his pubes. Chris' thighs tremble and he clutches helplessly at the doorframe with his right hand, nothing but wall against his sweaty palm to the left.

With that kind of motivation, he's fully hard in no time. Making noises, too; the volume and variety of which send all the blood not currently eddying in his crotch rushing to his face. There's no way to stop the sounds, though, not when Zach goes down again like he's starved for it, pushing until the back of his throat flutters a warning kiss to the tip of Chris cock, then pulling off to gulp down air and do it all over again, lips glossy with spit.

He gets a hand around the base, shoulders wedging Chris' legs further apart so the denim’s digging into Chris’ flesh; slows it down as he starts to jack, with his lips bobbing back and forth over the first few inches. Luxuriating in it like a cat in a scrap of sunlight while enough electricity to power a small city plays tag with either end of Chris’ spine.

Chris has always been of the opinion that as long as no injuries are sustained, there's no such thing as a bad blow job. There is, however, such a thing as an exceptional blow job, and that's exactly what he’s on the receiving end of now.

He's not sure why that surprises him; Zach is meticulous about all of his skill sets, no reason giving head would be any different.

It is different, though. Chris has been mystified by Zach before, knocked back on his heels in awe and towed beyond his own limits without a second thought, but he's never felt like he was on fire before. Like fusion is occurring in the pit of his stomach and radiating out, a pure, crystalline energy burning him up and eating him away until there' nothing left in the hollow shell of him but shimmering, pulsating heat.

Chris maybe gets a little poetic during sex, he's learned to accept that about himself.

"Oh fuck, you're good at that," he gasps, slightly less poetic, but no less heartfelt.

Pressing down further until his lips meet his fist, Zach throws him a look that's a heady cocktail of, "Obviously," and, "Thank you," and flickers the tip of his tongue at Chris' slit like a reward.

When Chris' hips buck - totally outside of his control; Zach just did some kind of very fancy licking thing that fried at least three-quarters of Chris' remaining brain cells - Zach slaps his free hand to his belly and shoves him back, pins him to the wall with the strength of one arm. The last thing Chris would have expected is to feel his dick jerk at that, smearing tantalizingly over the beveled roof of Zach's mouth. Evidently he was alone on that count, because Zach manages to pack a whole week's worth of smug into the shape of his eyes.

A stray thought flies at Chris out of left field that this should be the breaking point: looking down the length of his body to see his costar-cum-friend watching him back, lips pouted around his cock, five o'clock shadow growing darker as Zach hollows his cheeks around the head. This is the moment when it's totally unavoidable, no hand-waving, no pretense, just  Zachary Quinto on his knees, illicit as a street drug and just as addictive. God help him, that makes Chris hotter for it.

"You're going to come, aren't you?" Zach rasps, pulling off with a quiet, wet sound that curls Chris’ toes inside his shoes. He can feel the words, a hot slither of breath over his skin like sidewinder tracks in the sand.

He pants, "Yeah." Nods. Feels a knuckle pop as he tightens his grip around the molding of the doorframe.

"Soon?" The word is muffled where Zach’s lips are pressed lightly against his balls, giving up teasing swipes of tongue, and Chris is going to put his hand through the fucking wall any fucking second in unbridled sexual frustration.

Between clenched teeth, he grits, "A lot fucking sooner if you'd fucking suck it," then nearly collapses, limp-kneed, when Zach opens up to let him in deeper. Under the fan of his lashes, wetness sparkles, more when he works the tip of Chris’ cock into the sweet, fluttering clutch where Chris can feel him choking, body fighting for air as a flush spills from his cheeks all the way down until his chest disappears beneath his shirt.

Something insane like, “You don’t have to,” tries to force its way out of Chris’ mouth, but he can’t get enough air in his own lungs for it to come out more than a bleat.

Any which way, Zach shuts him up, sucking so hard as he pulls off that for a second Chris can't even tell whether it hurts or feels good. Instantly he's soothing the pressure away right with soft rolls of his tongue, mouthing wet around the ridge like he needs to taste every square inch of Chris’s cock individually.

"Like that?" Zach asks, damp eyelashes aflutter. Patronizing fucker.

His voice is even thicker than it was a second ago, wet-sounding, like his mouth flooded to slick the way for Chris to fuck back into him. Just the sound of it is enough to make Chris growl, a shallow, primitive thrill that sets him writhing between the wall and the forearms Zach’s braced across his stomach.

"Or more like this?"

Popping the head of Chris dick back through the loose ring of his lips, Zach moans pornographically. Keeps up a litany of exaggerated sounds that are so obviously an act it would hurt Chris’ thespian soul if the vibration wasn't sending this zing through his system that makes it feel like all of his joints are rattling in their sockets.

The hand that’s been trying to scrape the wall paper off the wall ends up on Zach’s shoulder, stroking up the back of his neck when holding still proves impossible. What might have been a real groan leaks out around the messy-dirty-sexy noise of Zach’s lips and fist moving wetly over Chris’ skin, so Chris goes with it, grips a little tighter at the sweat-tacky nape of Zach’s neck. This time the whining sound Zach makes is definitely authentic.

A lot less in control than he seemed thirty seconds ago, Zach jostles Chris’ shirt up, scratches roughly at his belly with blunt nails; quick stings of pain that flare and spread, twisted into something bittersweet by the time the sensation trickles from Chris’ brain down to the snarl of fire wound tight around the base of his spine.

Chris chokes on his  first attempt at a warning because Zach chooses that particular moment to rub a knuckle behind Chris’ balls, so by the time he’s got enough motor function back to try and make words, all he’s got a chance for is, “Now, now, nownownow,” before he’s shooting off so hard his thighs cramp.

Either Zach doesn’t get it, or he didn’t plan to pull off in the first place, but either way Chris can feel his spunk filling up Zach’s mouth, getting everything impossibly slicker and sloshing molasses-thick against Chris’ exploding nerve endings as he churns out a final pulse over the flat of Zach’s tongue.

Fucking hell.

_Fucking hell._

Zach pulls off slowly, lips tight and still sucking despite the broken whimper Chris lets out as all that pressure centers on his oversensitive cockhead. Immediately he spits the mess into his palm, really foul and hindbrain-sexy enough that Chris dick leaps again, more painful than good.

It’s as much habit as anything when he turns his face away as Zach stands up and presses in mouth-first. Not that it gets him much of anywhere because just as quick, Zach’s clean hand is at his jaw, turning him back with fingertips pressing Chris’ cheek into the hard edges of his teeth.

“Don’t bitch. If it’s good enough for my mouth, it’s good enough for yours.” And then he’s licking his way past Chris’ lips without even the polite pretense of a kiss first, just tongue and the heavy, faintly chlorine taste that’s apparently Essence du Chris. It’s not going to be winning any Michelin stars, but he can’t argue that the plating is a real showstopper.

Zach fumbles when he goes for Chris’ hand – aiming for the left one first before Chris prods a right-handed reminder at him instead. The shuffle is distracting enough that Chris forgets for a second that Zach’s hand is wet. What it’s wet with.

Gross.

And hot? Maybe hot.

Completely different kind of hot from the shocking blood-heat of Zach’s cock pressing into Chris’ palm.

It’s thick and hard and Chris has to jerk away from Zach’s brain-melty kisses to stare down at it. It’s not like he’s totally oblivious here; there's been plenty of innuendo, bordering on rumors really. Plus there’s Zach’s tendency to do his sun salutations in what Chris is almost certain are ladies yoga pants and the whole making out thing they’ve been doing and how hard it is to avoid the, well,  _hard_  parts in that situation. So yeah, Chris knows, but knowing about it and looking at his own fingers wrapped shiny-wet around the girth of it are two different things.

“That’s a big dick.”

The second it’s out of his mouth, Chris’ eyeballs are floating on top of the ocean of blood that rushes to his cheeks.

Like it’s just as much of a show-off as its owner – and, really, why the fuck wouldn’t it be – Zach’s cock spasms in Chris’ fist, a blurt of thin fluid sliding out to slick the pad of Chris’ thumb.

Yep, that’s officially bizarre. And maybe hot.

“Sweettalker.” Zach voice is shaky around the joke in a way it never is. Breathless, yeah, Chris has heard that plenty of times from cardio and stuff, but not raw like this. Never before like Zach’s swollen inside the confines of his own control, the tender parts of him showing through the strained seams.

It makes Chris want to kiss him again, so he does, letting his jaw fall open and his mouth go soft to counter the desperate energy Zach bites and sucks at him with.

Zach’s hand slides off of Chris’, stops guiding the rhythm and starts just hanging on at his wrist, then his forearm, tingling trails of come slipping under the sleeve of Chris’ shirt until Zach’s fingers dig in around his bicep. He’s bucking into Chris’ hand, up on tiptoe to fuck into it as hard as possible. A damp spot sears into Chris’ stomach as the head of Zach’s dick bumps into him over and over.

In the shadow of their bodies Zach’s cock looks deep red, darker when a downstroke slides the foreskin back to fully bare the crown. This way it looks almost like what Chris is used to seeing between his own legs every day – if, admittedly, from a really fucked up angle – but there’s something about it that naked bit of flesh that seems vulnerable, like Zach’s more delicate somehow because he’s usually got an extra sheath of skin swallowing him up.

And this is really not the time to think about swallowing. Not when Chris’s own softening dick is still hanging out of his fly, wet with jizz and Zach’s spit. He's way too old to consider getting hard again that fast.

"You were very well-behaved, Christopher.” Zach’s winded now, but there’s enough teasing condescension to make it familiar. He licks a broad stripe over Chris’ ear, plenty of sex still coating Chris like salt on sea air to make it seem dirty in a good way. “I expected much more hair pulling."

Normally for Chris things are either slow and sweet or fast and filthy; girls he cares too much about or ones whose names he barely knows. It’s not mischievous, and he’d sure as hell never ride a little vindictive thrill from turning that kind of play right back around on one of them, but that’s exactly what he does when he snakes his free hand around and grabs a fistful of Zach’s hair. "Like that?"

"Fuck, yes," Zach hisses, broken open with his eyes squeezed shut and his head tipped back over the taut line of his throat.

Because the Venn diagram of temptation and opportunity just fused into a circle, Chris runs the edges of his teeth over it. Doesn’t bite, because he’s not an asshole who doesn’t care if his costar has to wear a scarf around everywhere to cover marks. Wouldn’t be worth it anyway, not knowing how much Zach would complain after the fact, but nonetheless, there’s something intoxicating about knowing that right this second Zach would probably love it. 

He’s paying more attention to the salt tang as he presses his tongue flat to Zach’s Adam’s apple than he is to what he’s doing with his hand, but in this one respect, Chris feels pretty confident in his own familiarity with the equipment. Obviously it’s working for Zach.

“Gonna. Fuck." The words are gravel, irregular edges that snag at Chris' sanity and leave him bleeding heat and the totally unexpected need to feel Zach come apart for him. "Oh God, please. Please.”

And really, who is Chris who deny a well-mannered request like that? 

Tightening both hands turns Zach's ragged breathing into a drawn-out inhale, a high spike of sound punctuating the end. He's straining between the fist Chris has tangled in his hair and the one wrapped snug around his dick, hips twitching and shifting  when Chris doesn't give him the room to thrust, just jacks viciously, twisting at the head.

 It's bound to be too much friction, the come on his skin going gummy, clinging thick around the ridge and the stretched rim of foreskin. Zach moans for it, though, hands rough on Chris' shoulders, his arms, shoving his shirt up into his pits for Zach's fingers to dabble erratic patterns over the thunder of Chris' heart in his chest.

He bucks once, pulling hard against Chris' grip on his hair and then shocking warmth is rewetting Chris' fingers.

Chris’ shoes skid against the carpet as Zach all but collapses against him, mouthing at Chris' cheek with all the strength and coordination of a newborn kitten. The scrap of air between them is humid, too hot to feel at home at their current latitude, clogged with the dirty sweat-and-come smell of good sex. Zach's overtaxed aftershave layered on top of it should be a weird fit, but it's not.

"You're heavy," Chris says after a minute. Busy shuffing his lips back and forth over the hinge of Chris' jaw, Zach mumbles something incomprehensible in reply.

His dick is mostly soft in the tunnel of Chris' fingers, muscles jumping erratically every now and again. Every time that happens, it slips a little more, until Chris finally loosens his grip enough for it to slide free completely, glistening fat and limp against the crease of Zach's thigh when he glances down.

And man, that is a freaky point of view. Zach's cock all wet and flushed, Chris' hand cozied up next to it, coated to the wrist in jizz. Splotches of it are already drying white on his forearm, a gloss on his palm, thicker, milkier build-up in the webbing between his fingers that stretches and snaps, clings as he wiggles them experimentally.

"Yeah, no, just gross now." Chris wrinkles his nose, touching his fingers together then pulling them apart to watch in perverse fascination as sticky strands of come spiderweb between his knuckles.

Shifting his forehead to the curve of Chris' neck, Zach looks between them at Chris' hand. He hums thoughtfully in his throat, delicately bracketing Chris' wrist with a thumb and finger to turn it back and forth.

All of the air in Chris' lungs leaks out on a grunt at the cold squelch of come against the flushed skin of his belly.

The smirk on Zach’s face when he lifts it looks like he had to dig it out from underneath a pile of dopey, but his hand is still pressed to the back of Chris', holding it in place as some of the thicker strings of spunk start to slide, honey-slow down his abdomen, so Zach’s probably still the winner in this scenario.

"I hate you with every fiber of my being," Chris grits through clenched teeth, watching a grin cast a long shadow across Zach's face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That same hit of fake fear he gets every time they harness him up for wire work is nuzzling at his gut like a hungry kitten, a primitive sense of risk that makes his stomach flip-flop and his veins sing with adrenaline even though he knows down in his marrow that Zach wouldn’t really just stick it in him, no matter how blatantly Chris teased him with that girl at the afterparty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, I ACTUALLY FINISHED THIS CHAPTER! *cackles maniacally, slowly collapsing to the floor*
> 
> As usual, I have been working on this for too long to be in any way objective about whether it's worth a damn or not, but by god, I'm posting it anyway! Future installments should, theoretically, not take me four moths to post. I hope. Fuck. 
> 
> Thank you all for your kind words and being awesome and sticking with me - apologies for my timeliness suckage.

Knowing Zach this way is strange, if only because Chris hadn’t realized that there was anything left to know. A month ago he’d have laid money that he could guess Zach’s opinion on any given subject, his reaction to any circumstance. He’d had him down pat, neatly filed away in a safe little box Chris could take down from the shelf of his mind and root around in any time he felt like it. So it's even more jarring than it might otherwise have been when he keeps getting hit at odd moments with this cognitive double-vision where the outlines of the Zach he expects and the Zach he’s got don’t quite match up.

It's in the dip of Zach’s lashes when his eyes chase words across Chris' lips, the predacious edge in the smiles only Chris gets to see, the way he leans in a smidge too close to Chris' ear to whisper something or nothing. Exactly the way Chris would have expected Zach to be, if he'd ever given much consideration to Zach in a not-really-relationship, and then again, not the same at all, because there's all this other stuff too. How all of his touches start with a light, darting brush like he thinks Chris needs a warning or a chance to back out, his magpie tendency to steal odds and ends out of Chris' stuff - a spritz of cologne, an undershirt, the matchbook from that place in Berlin. The way he rasps, "Please," before he comes.

Exhilarating and intimidating and like a fucking street drug, Chris has gone from anxious first-timer to junkie so fast his head’s still spinning. He can’t get enough, can't stop prodding at all the new angles of Zach like a fresh ache. Leaving well enough alone has never been Chris' strong suit, anyway. 

Reactions like this aren't exactly encouraging him to pick up the habit. 

"Don't even think about it." Zach's voice is an absinthe-soaked sugar cube, scorching from the outside in. Strong hands clasp tight around his wrists, forcing his palms flat against the crisp sheets with a squeeze that says 'stay'.

"So fucking pushy," Chris grunts, the best he can do with most of his attention on trying to get some decent friction against the mattress if Zach's not going to let him jack off. The cotton is slightly damp against his cheek where he's already starting to sweat, hot with the choppy breaths Zach keeps knocking loose as he manhandles Chris' slacks off. 

"Might not be if you didn't get off on it so much." 

Something that Chris suspects is his phone clatters to the floor, but he doesn’t have time to worry about it because then he’s got the heat of Zach's skin molding against his bare back, visceral enough to pull a hiss in through Chris' teeth; the crinkle of chest hair and the cool bump of his necklace as snug between Chris’ shoulder blades as Chris is between Zach's thighs.

He tries to scoff, "Bullshit." Mostly ruins it when he can't resist wriggling back into the pan of Zach's hips.

Zach's cock is even hotter than the rest of him; this hard, fevered line digging into Chris’ ass cheek as Zach grinds and sends a whole slew of apprehension-laced cravings tumbling down the back wall of his skull. 

"Me not being pushy, or you getting off on it?" 

Cool rushes in fast enough to make Chris's skin pebble when Zach pulls back, a full-on shiver overwhelming him at the unexpectedly cold drizzle of lube between his thighs. Within a second it warms up, flushed energy racing under his skin like a heating coil, but it still startles a curse out of him that makes Zach hum, all perverse satisfaction. 

"Both," Chris bites, even though he hasn't gotten around to moving his hands yet. 

Ticklish, the lube drips down over his balls, sensitizing them as the hair along his inner thighs rubs with every hindered thrust. The feel of it is new and inexplicably dirty; slippery in places he only ever gets after a long, messy fuck, except this time he's not the one giving it. There's this jangle along his nerves that keeps telling him that should bother him more than it actually does.

After the chilly shock of lube, Zach's dick feels even warmer, burning up as he presses into the small space between Chris' thighs. And yeah, oh yeah, that's really fucking dirty, the feel of it sliding against his skin, crown bumping at his sac, shifting his nuts to make room. 

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, or says. Both probably. There’s no reason it should feel this tooth-achingly sweet; the slide of hot, solid flesh against his taint, jostling just the tiniest bit between his cheeks on the upstroke, caressing his balls on the down. That same hit of fake fear he gets every time they harness him up for wire work is nuzzling at his gut like a hungry kitten, a primitive sense of risk that makes his stomach flip-flop and his veins sing with adrenaline even though he knows down in his marrow that Zach wouldn’t really just stick it in him, no matter how blatantly Chris teased him with that girl at the afterparty.  

Turns out Chris enjoys being coveted. Having a dude for a fuckbuddy has been a revelatory experience.

Ever the fucking psychic, Zach husks, "Think she could give you that," edgy and a little playful. He's settled in against Chris' back again, knees digging harsh into the outside of Chris' legs before he gets the message to squeeze them together. 

"Pushy and competitive." 

"Like you’re surprised."

Zach's mouth opens against his cheek, tongue slipping out like he needs to taste-test the salt on Chris’ skin, the animalistic fucker. Damn if Chris isn’t getting off on that too. 

Another molten breath heaves into his lungs when Zach yanks at his hip, lifting them with brute force until Chris can get his legs situated well enough to keep them together for Zach to fuck into without being pressed flat to the bed. 

For Zach to fuck into. Jesus. Sweet fucking Jesus.

The jolt of laundry-stiff fabric skimming the head of his dick is sharper like this, riding the paper-thin line between sublime and devastating. Amps up every time Zach thrusts against him, rough enough that Chris skids forward a little with each lewd slap of flesh, chafing heat tingling along his chest as Zach rests a hand on the back of his neck to keep his head pinned down. 

The other hand comes up to press Chris' hardon flat against his belly, smoothing up it, a bit slick from the lube smearing all over his  groin. As he strokes down Zach bucks forward, palm cupping around the head of his own dick and pressing it against the very base of Chris' shaft, massaging them cock to cock. 

The position puts him tight against Chris' body all over; sweat itching where he's plastered along Chris' back, the grate of neatly trimmed pubic hair against his ass, dick wedging between his nuts in a way that should not, absolutely _should not_ feel good, and damnit, that thin mewling noise Chris keeps hearing is coming out of his own mouth.

"God, you like that don't you?" Zach breathes, tar-thick. His hips jerk like there's any closer for them to get, churning right along with the jagged frisson in Chris' stomach as Zach's long, sure fingers and thick, hot cock work him over.  All of these infinitesimal pleasure-sounds Zach probably doesn't mean to make tearing his words to shreds and leaving Chris a shivering cluster of stripped nerves. Of course even sex can't shut Zach up.

"Bet you'd be gorgeous getting fucked," he says, liquid sex pouring along the curve of Chris’ neck, lapped away by Zach's tongue as it saunters up to his earlobe. "Bet you'd fucking moan. Bet you’d squirm around on my cock, show me how good I make you feel."

Chris' heart trips, something sultry inside of him twisting, like hearing the words is more real than being all of four inches away from actually fucking doing it.

"You want me to make you feel good?" 

There's a sliver of air between them suddenly, has to be for Zach's hand to slip back over the curve of Chris' ass and insinuate itself between their bodies. The most careful touch feathers over Chris' hole, conspiratorial and promising and sheepish in a way that just a few weeks ago Chris would have said Zach could never be.

This should finally finally _finally_ be the hard ‘no’, the border between fucking around and fucking. Another line drawn in the sand for the sirocco that is Zach to obliterate, another brick wall to ram right through like a semi-truck at top speed, only for Chris to find his own foot on the gas pedal after the dust settles.

The sound Chris' fingernails make as they scrape across the sheets is deafening. Zach doesn't move. If his mouth wasn't still right there against Chris' fucking ear like it's Zach's sole mission in life to make him quiver, he'd say Zach wasn't even breathing. 

That finger rubs a maddening circle, not enough pressure to slip in, but too much for Chris to think about anything beyond the resisting throb of those muscles and the way it echoes out through him like a plucked string, slithering between the layers of syrupy pleasure from his dick, turning it into something deeper, cut-glass sharp and not quite enough. 

Sexuality crises are so fucking overrated.

"C'mon, just- just-" Chris rolls his forehead against the sheets, air like a sauna in the pocket of space between his body and the bed. Heat stings up the back of his’ neck as he cants his hips further, a creeping itch of anxiety winding in on itself until he can’t tell whether he’s afraid Zach’s going to give it to him or afraid he’s not.

It hovers there on the razor’s edge for so long that the air in Chris’ lungs starts to seize up into something soupy and ludicrously close to panic. Swear to god, he can feel every molecule in his body, the force holding his atoms together like dissolving glue, polarity and energy and he is going to punch Zach in the motherfucking face if something doesn’t happen right the hell now.

He gets as far as, "Damnit, Za-" before Zach's finger drives into him, slick, and slow, and vicious, the end of Zach's name melting like butter on his tongue.

The smooth burn isn’t a surprise; Chris has always been sensitive like this, part of the reason he doesn’t go there very often - too much, too hard to weed out the difference between so good he thinks he’s going to die and just feeling like he’s going to die. That wallop and tingle that squeezes all the thoughts out of his head like an overused tube of toothpaste. Always over way too fast.

Zach’s better at it than Chris has ever been, ever hopes to be because for the love of fuck, he’s got to be able to hold down a job and that’s damn hard to do with your grey-matter leaking out your ears. Like his hand was built for this sole purpose, he nails that angle Chris can never quite manage, and Chris’ body screws back into the breach of Zach’s knuckles without so much as a by-your-leave from his brain. 

The groan Zach spills out as he peels away from Chris’ back does nothing but confirm what Chris already knows about how he must look; head down and ass in the air, dick dripping onto the sheets, grinding back on one fucking finger like a some kind of nymphomaniac. He’d give a kidney right now for a pillow to hide his blush in and still he can’t stop himselffrom moving with it anyway when Zach curls his finger and a shuddery jolt of sensation like playing with his dick for too long after he’s come ricochets up Chris’ spine.

Zach’s free hand glides through the sweat on Chris’ side, up to card through his hair, scratch along his scalp. Soothing and reverent, as if he’s not turning Chris inside out with careful strokes along his tender parts and the wary flirt of another finger around the rim.

“Look at you. Fucking gagging for it.” Zach sounds like he just downed a refreshing glass of thumb tacks. Makes a noise almost too feral to be human when the tip of that second finger slots in, dialing up the hot pulse between Chris’ legs until he can barely differentiate between the leap of his dick and his sac drawing up and the gritty drag of Zack’s knuckles sliding in and out of him. “I could shove my cock into you and wipe her right out of your head, couldn’t I? Wouldn’t even remember her name by the time I was through with you. Hell, you probably wouldn’t even remember your own.” 

Whatever the hell Zach’s talking about, Chris has lost the thread; could not fucking care less as long as Zach doesn’t stop. He keeps trying to find room somewhere in his rib cage to pack in a scrap of air with all of this honeyed, electric glow filling up the empty spaces between the fibers of his being and Zach rubbing at his delicate bits like he’s keying in Chris’ own personal ignition sequence.

Works like a fucking charm, too. One second he’s straining for it, working so hard his knees start to skid out from under him and then Zach’s fingers twist and the world shimmers and he’s plunging into the sudden sweet rush, toes curled and teeth grinding as his nervous system skins itself raw.

As far as he can tell his bones melt, that harsh mistress gravity sending him careening facedown into the bed, come pasting the linens to his belly, sweat taking care of that everywhere else. 

It’s too much when Zach climbs on top of him again, overheated skin sticking to itself and each other, but Chris makes an encouraging sound in his throat anyway, does his best to tense his thighs again as Zach presses his cock back between them. 

His motions are jerky and uncoordinated, not really like Zach at all, except for how it is and Chris knows it is, because he’s caught glimpses of all the messy, unkempt impulses that seethe just under the polished surface of Zach before.

Chris basks in it, lays there in the swelter of their bodies and thinks, _use me, use me_. It’s really not a healthy thought and he’ll probably have a crisis of conscience about it later, but right this second he’s got Zach’s dick fucking between his legs like he’ll die if he doesn’t get to come all over Chris’ taint and his own sensitized cock sliding against the ruined sheets and Zach’s mouth on any piece of skin he can reach, biting and licking and sucking marks like he promised he wasn’t going to do anymore and this might very well be what bliss feels like so healthy can go fuck itself. 

Zach doesn’t even get out a full, “Please,” this time, just a choked syllable mauled to death against Chris’ shoulder. Chris’ bruised shoulder. At least it’ll be easier to cover up the teeth marks there. 

Wet heat floods the space between Chris’ legs, slick and nasty as it spreads all over his spent dick and makes it twitch. Having a dude for a fuck buddy – revelatory, and possibly conditioning him into some really hard to explain fetishes. 

Considering the amount of effort moving would require, Chris opts to just lay there and stew in it, his own breath a hot wash over his face when it reflects back off of the rumpled sheets. 

“You are seriously possessive,” he says after a minute, voice almost pure bass. 

Zach’s, on the other hand, wavers into something brittle, a hundred times too tense for the level of spectacular fucking that just happened. “Yeah. Sorry.” 

The sticky noise of their skin separating as Zach pulls away is nose-wrinklingly distracting enough that Chris almost misses that Zachary John Quinto just apologized. Holy shit. “She’s probably still down there if you want to-“

“Try and get her to hook up with me now that you’ve marinated me in your jizz? I don’t know how this works with guys, but women tend to take exception to that kind of thing.”

“You could shower first.”

“I’d have to be able to walk first.”

Cautiously Chris rolls over onto his side. There's a slight twinge in his ass, but it's not bad, smarting enough that he kind of wants to squirm but not legitimately painful. The come smeared all over his crotch tingles in the sudden cool. Zach's eyes hone in on it like a goosebump-seeking missile. 

Chris hasn't ever really doubted that the girls he's slept with have wanted him, and even with that part of him that's forever stuck in the mentality of being gawky and pubescent, he's had several years of random strangers in the business wanting to put him on display to assure him that yes, really, he's good looking. Still, he can't remember anybody ever wearing their undisguised want like a badge of honor quite the way Zach does. 

There's something decadent about having power over him like this; Zach, who's teflon, and Chris can make his eyes go soft and hot and his mouth go slack, can make him say please like he really means it. It's almost as good as the sex. 

Okay, not really. Zach sucks cock like a god - the inevitability of getting drunk enough to actually say that to Zach looms large in Chris head, preemptively mortifying - but still, it's really really good.

Milking it a little, Chris eases onto his back, arching into a slow stretch that Zach follows with all the rapt attention of a hound on the trail. What do you know, Chris may have finally found a way to get the last word.

Or maybe not.

“You’ve been holding out on me,” Zach says, reaching out slow like he's being compelled, another one of those little warning touches before his fingers trace along the outside of Chris' thigh. He skirts the glossy outline coating Chris' belly, down to the join of his hip, as close as he can get to the inner thigh without making a mess. 

Oh, wonderful, the blush is back.

“Yeah, it’s…” Chris shrugs, “I don’t know.” The watercolor abstract hanging over the bed spontaneously develops several interesting properties that require his full attention.

 “Heterotypically feminine to like having something inside you?”

He squirms under Zach’s scrutiny, aggressively wishing there was a way to cover up without giving more away than just sticky, naked skin. This is really, really not something he does, let alone talks about, and he’s spent a lot of time over the years very studiously avoiding analyzing why that is. Just like he’s planning to avoid thinking about why he just up and let Zach have at it. It’s been working for him pretty well so far.

“You definitely just made that word up,” he scoffs instead. And yeah, alright he’s a manipulative asshole, but there is a certain novelty to the gulping noise Zach makes when Chris sprawls his legs a little further apart.

Zach’s voice is cracked when he says, "Just because your vocabulary is woefully underdeveloped," slow, like his tongue is struggling under the weight of the syllables.

"Oh really, Mr. A-"

The rest of Chris’ admittedly elementary school-level reply is licked back into his mouth by the shove of Zach’s tongue, fingertips digging in to the inside of Chris’ thigh.

So not technically the last word, but close enough.

***

Hazing back to consciousness in the middle of a flight has its own strange appeal – not really being anywhere and having visited often enough in recent days to not quite remember where he’s headed; the dark, recycled air like a veil of privacy where he’s hunkered down as far as he can get in his seat. He’s already getting a crick in his neck from trying to find a comfortable position.

It’s not until Chris goes to roll the tension out of his shoulders and feels fingers twitch against his scalp that he glances over at Zach.

His eyes look as fuzzy as Chris’ feel, slits of black coffee under heavy lashes. His hand moves again, petting jerkily like he keeps having to remind it to move. The cocked angle of his arm, leveraged against the headrest of Chris’ seat, can’t be comfortable.  

Chris has every intention of saying something about it - teasing, because the key to communicating with Zach without taking a nosedive into anxiety and self-loathing is to preemptively make fun of everything - but his bones are leaded with that anesthetized punchiness that says he's been asleep for not nearly long enough and somewhere along the way words turn into him nudging the armrest between his and Zach's seats out of the way and flopping his head over on Zach's shoulder.

Muscles tense under his cheek, shifting beneath the soft, slightly nubby fabric of Zach's cardigan. He can feel Zach's hand hovering awkwardly in the air behind him like there's a forcefield erected around Chris' personal space.

A quick mental fistpump - it is not every day that one gets to make Zach feel discomfitted - and then Chris takes pity on him; hauling himself upright long enough to pull Zach's arm from around his shoulders and tuck it back against Zach's side before he resettles on his handy-dandy new shoulder-pillow. It takes a poke in the ribs and an answering elbow shove to get the last of that tension leeching out of Zach and then, there, yes, perfect.

It's peculiar Chris thinks. Not the sleeping on Zach's shoulder, although, yes, that's also kind of odd if he thinks too hard about it. Would be moreso if anybody around them was awake enough to notice or care. But no, more than that, how easy it is to do this.

Even without the with-benefits, or with-dick pieces thrown in, this arrangement with Zach is an anomaly in the lopsided puzzle that is Chris' love life. For the most part, his affairs burn hot and fast; sex and the anticipation of sex strung out thin and spindly over aimless days, cobweb sticky until they snap under their own weight, until he feels less like a person and more like the leftovers of an exorcism. The flipside of it, the _relationships_ , are messier and prettier and slopped all over with feelings that Chris has never been all that good at controlling. Eventually, inevitably, he paints one of them into a corner with it all and the only escape lies in painful smears and footprint stains that the other person's left to scrape clean. None of it's really easy, even the parts that are amazing.

It makes him wonder if this is what people mean when they talk about falling in love with their best friend. Ease. Knowledge like a comforting balm that the next time you trip over your words and eat a foot sandwich, it's going to be someone calling out your bullshit instead of a quiet sniff or a slammed door. The absence of pressure. He could dig that, even if it's not exactly serenades and love letters.

Warm, Zach's cheek presses against the top of his head. His hair's going to be a total loss by the time they land, wherever the hell it is they’re landing. Hopefully somewhere without a lot of paps.

Eh, what the hell. He'll make Zach lend him a hat.

***

Chris gets the appeal of New York, he really does. He's not going to start waxing poetic about it like Zach does any time soon, but even a west coast pleb like him and see the allure. There's a grit to the city that's completely different from LA, a marrow-deep history that shadows the European cities that have been flashing before Chris' eyes for the past two weeks. Three weeks? Who even knows anymore.

Jostling his way up to the bar in some overcrowded, underlit dive off of St. Marks, it's not the classical flair he's appreciating so much as the fact that none of the two dozen variations of floppy plaid and piercings shoving by him have seemed to give one shit the Chris is Captain Kirk. It's alarming how much he’s appreciating being treated like human cattle at this moment.

On the other hand, he wouldn't mind it at all if the bartender happened to be a trekkie - 'trekker', Zach's voice huffs in the back of his head - since that looks like the only way he's ever going to get the guy's attention.

"So," says Corey, all of four inches from the side of Chris' face, because apparently he's got crazy ninja skills that let him melt out of the crowd to give Chris a fucking heart attack. Runs right over Chris', "Jesus, dude," with, "How's that working out for ya?"

Expecting absolutely anything to come after that, Chris gets stuck staring stupidly while the bartender rushes by again, paying them both less than no attention. If Corey notices, he doesn't show it; just stares right back, one elbow hitched up on the edge of the bar as if Chris blinking like an idiot is the most interesting thing he's seen all week.

Most of the time Chris likes Zach's friends. An eclectic group of weirdos, to be sure, but all of Chris' favorite people are. The biggest problem is that they all seem to have mastered that aura of casual superiority that Zach wears like a cashmere suit of armor; the one that always leaves Chris scrambling to prove he's not as much of a brainless sack of meat as his employment history might suggest. It's like hanging out with a herd of particularly unimpressed housecats

"Traditionally, conversations are held in a linear fashion, so the other person knows what the hell you're talking about." Chris laughs. The strain threading through it is barely even noticeable with all the background noise.

Corey… Corey doesn't actually do anything, but some sort of low frequency 'having none of your bullshit' resonance starts coming off of him in waves. It's really impressive; Chris would love to study how he does it.

Of course, Corey also manages to look up and, with a jerk of his chin, reel the bartender in close enough to shout their order to, so obviously there's a lot Chris could learn from him.

Chris reminds himself that he's the lead in a successful summer blockbuster so he can't possibly be a failure at every aspect of life, no matter what it seems like at this particular moment.

Alright, correction, Zach's friends are like particularly unimpressed housecats crossed with Chris' mother, because none of the cats he's ever spent time around have made him feel like their eyes are rifling around in the depths of his blackened soul to unearth the pleasant half-truths he lugs out to get by in most social interactions and scattering them all over the floor.

"You can tell him to fuck off and he'll fuck off," Corey says, dry-toast bland. A stolen stirrer-straw dances between his fingers, rolling back and forth through his knuckles until it gets stuck on the journey from ring to pointer, crimped to a sharp angle of red plastic over the hump of his middle finger. "He's a bossy son of a bitch, but he can take no for an answer."

"I…" Chris starts. Takes one look at Corey's face and switches to an exasperated, "We're not even doing anything different, how the hell is it so obvious?"

The hand Corey slaps to Chris' shoulder is way too big for a guy who's virtually the same size as him. "Hate to tell you, buddy, but it's always been obvious."

"We haven't even been," Chris’ brain stalls out, "I mean," because evidently that's a theme for the evening. A motif, even. Zach's fucking friends. "It's very new."

Just as quick as it landed, that hand is off his shoulder to wave around in front of his face instead. "Nope, nein. Do not want to know. I'm just saying that there is deep appreciation around here for you not being a canoe constructed entirely of douches, we have all paddled that up the river with dear Zachary and it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but I also know how he gets, so I just wanted to make sure that _you're_  okay with whatever it is that I don't want to know."

_Zach's fucking friends._

A ragtag assortment of glasses and bottles slides across the bar and somehow wind up on Corey's tab despite Chris deliberately trying to get it all put on his card. He's beginning to consider the possibility that he may, in fact, be invisible to bartenders.

Grabbing his own helping of what's passing for scotch down here below street level and Zach's G&T, plus a shot of something does-not-occur-in-nature blue, Chris rolls with his perpetual gut instinct - deflect.

"You are a remarkably cryptic human being," he laughs, a lamer attempt than the first time and with about the same effect, since Corey just stands there, refusing to pick up the rest of the drinks, folding his mangled straw into triangles against his palm.

Perfect. Here Chris was, doing so well with the casual genital contact and the really not analyzing things at all. Having people he literally barely knows question his life choices is totally what he needs.

And yeah, okay, fine, that's a shitty thing to think, because Corey - of all people - is worrying about Chris. Not even in the 'hurt my friend and I'll hurt you' way that Chris would have expected, either. Worrying about him being _pressured_ like Chris has slipped into an alternate dimension where afterschool specials take place in bars with $8 PBR and questionably stable ceiling tiles.

That it’s not actually an invalid concern doesn’t do much to make him feel better. Not that Zach has made Chris do anything he didn’t want to or whatever, but there’s no real getting around the fact that none of the fairly wide variety of things he and Zach have done since this deal started have been Chris' idea.

He's spent the better part of a month letting Zach systematically worm his way around all of the boundaries Chris sets up, cajoling when Chris is reluctant, demanding the second he's got an inch of wiggle room.

Of course, complaining about that'd be ignoring the part where Chris spends a lot more time than he'd care to admit with his mind stuck like glue on the shape of Zach's mouth and the feel of his hands and the pornographic way he can bend like he's got an extra couple of joints packed in there somewhere. Or how he'd nearly forgotten to even check in to his own room in the last two hotels. Or the hot, sparkling thrill that zings up his spine whenever he catches Zach looking at him like he's forgotten he can’t actually tear Chris' clothes off with the sheer force of his mind.

How some days all the time between them being able to be alone again feels like Chris is holding his breath.

That probably falls under the heading of things Corey doesn't want to know.

No, his concern is about Zach coercing Chris into bed or something insane like that. Not whether Chris has the vaguest idea what they're supposed to be or what he's supposed to feel about it or if he'll end up sobbing into the shoulder of a grandmotherly lady on a silver line bus at 1am when it's all over.

Not that Chris has ever been in that position. But that's probably a thing that has happened. To people.

Certainly not to Zach.

Chris can't imagine Zach ever crying over a guy, unless it was scripted and filmed. Sure, he knows Zach's gotten hurt before - who hasn't? - but Zach's probably more of the scrub the grout with a toothbrush type. Zach channels his energy, Zenned out yoga freak that he is. He does not ugly-cry in public venues over getting too attached to somebody he's just having a little fun with. Especially not over somebody like Chris.

Lungs inexplicably tied in fancy Celtic knots, Chris tosses a look in the direction of their table in the back. It's too crowded in here to try and convey a SOS with his eyes – maybe one day, if they keep up the Kirk and Spock routine, that mental bond thing will finally kick in - and Zach's too occupied listening to Neal tell some story that involves a lot of dramatic arm motions to notice anyway.

Trapped, Chris sighs, slumps in a little closer so he doesn't have to speak quite as loud to get across, "I'm okay with it." Then, after a nervous second, "I'm just not entirely sure when that happened."

Corey eyes him for another second that stretches out, taffy-thick, before he nods and starts gathering up his share of the drinks. "Perspective, man. It's all about the perspective."

He slaps a couple of extra napkins between his palm and a sweating bottle of beer, nodding for Chris to lead the way. "Besides, you're not alone on branching out. You’re not exactly his usual type either. Minus the ass. The ass is his type."

"Checking out my ass, Moosa?" Chris looks back over his shoulder to flutter his eyelashes, the strung-up feeling in his chest slackening.

Corey rolls his eyes. "The way you stick it out, half the people in here have checked out your ass, man. And it's not nearly nice enough for me to want to kal-if-fee with Zach for it. He's way too fucking good at that serial killer schtick."

"Wait, okay, you lost me."

"This is new?" Zach asks, one arm slung across the high back of the rickety wooden bench masquerading as comfortable seating on their side of the table.

Corey passes out the drinks, rescuing the weird blue shot before it becomes another tragic victim of Chris' inability to avoid spilling consumables all over himself at every opportunity.

Shoving into the space next to Zach that seems a lot smaller than when he left it a minute ago, Chris gripes, "Eat me. What's kally-thingy?"

As soon as he's settled, Zach's hand shifts to his shoulder. Nothing really new there, more of a variation on the way they’ve always flung an arm around one another, only his thumb is snugged up behind the hinge of Chris' jaw, first two fingers curled loosely against his throat. Possessive. Definitely intimate. Not the way friends touch each other at all, even if there's nothing explicit to it.

Chris swallows the twitchy urge to shrug out of it in favor of the edgy, happy thrum that settles in afterward that feels a lot like getting away with something.  A fast-forward montage of all the things his publicist and the gossip rags and message board obsessives could say plays across the backs of his eyelids before the reflex settles and coils up safely in an unexamined corner of his brain.

Corey's bemoaning, "Kal-if-fee. This is what's wrong with kids today, no respect for the method. Whatever happened to total immersion in the role?"

Neal cuts in with something about Strasberg being a hack that Chris mostly misses because Zach's explaining, "It's when two Vulcans fight to the death for the right to mate with their chosen partner," just a little too close to Chris' ear not to be doing it on purpose.

Not in any way blushing, Chris scoffs, "You and Leonard just sit around talking about this shit, don't you?"

Zach's fingers curl in slowly so it’s just his knuckles traipsing softly up the length of Chris' throat. He’s smirking so hard Chris hopes he gets a face cramp. "Jealousy is unbecoming on you, Christopher."


End file.
